Further Cuttings from Cruiskeen Lawn

-- Paperback original.-- First U.S. edition. British publication by Hart-Davis, McGibbon Ltd ('76).-- A companion to The Best of Myles, Further Cuttings culls more scathing selections from Cruiskeen Lawn, Flann O'Brien's column in the Irish Times written under the pseudonym Myles na Gopaleen.-- This volume covers the years 1947-1957 and finds O'Brien's

Overview

-- Paperback original.-- First U.S. edition. British publication by Hart-Davis, McGibbon Ltd ('76).-- A companion to The Best of Myles, Further Cuttings culls more scathing selections from Cruiskeen Lawn, Flann O'Brien's column in the Irish Times written under the pseudonym Myles na Gopaleen.-- This volume covers the years 1947-1957 and finds O'Brien's alter ego clashing with the law on numerous charges, including larceny, using bad language, and marrying without the consent of his parents. It also includes several bizarre obituaries, witty criticisms of George Bernard Shaw, Sean O' Faolain, and other literary figures, the return of the preposterous Brother, and the first article ever ascribed to Myles (published in 1940).

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Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"The cleverest wit to grace the pages of any English language newspaper this century." --Books and Book Men

Dalkey Archive Press

"O'Brien is always worth investigation by the converted, the curious, and the endemically lighthearted." -- Kirkus Reviews

Dalkey Archive Press

Kirkus Reviews

Not yard debris, but more installments (1947-57) of The Irish Times "Full Jug" column by querulous comic provocateur O'Brien (The Poor Mouth, 1974, etc.). Born Brian Ó Nualláin, Irish civil servant Brian Nolanfor 26 years known to Irish Times readers as Myles nagCopaleen ("Miles of the Little Horses")wrote five novels (notably the "sober farce" At Swim-Two-Birds, not reviewed) as Flann O'Brien. Here Myles, the unwilling pub eavesdropper, endures bores ("It's a disease, you know") and re-encounters the Brother, who reads and reviews books: "An engrossing story of mankind at handigrips with fate." Myles also frequents the courts (having smashed a radio station's recording of the Blue Danube Waltz after listening to 4,312 airings in one year), and he tries to calculate how fat you'd have to be to be seen dead in a field of wheat. Pedantry, faux-profundity, and windy clerics get hoisted skyward, although there are no notes to illumine burning issues now 50 years old. Exercised by architects wheezing about "vocation" ("I wonder at what price this art and sanctity cubes out on the job?"), Myles is quite comfortable tackling diplomacy ("Shake hands and be fiends?")for if musicians can descant on politics, why not politicians on consecutive fifths? A ringmaster of Higher Nonsense, Myles attains an apogee of non sequituria in one rhapsody which careens from Dublin theaters to "How Are Things in Glocca Morra?" to a magazine psychologist's warning that "You Can't Always Card-Index Love!" This reprint of a 1976 UK edition (here publishedinthe US for the first time) demonstrates that a columnist cannot always be on form. The Best of Myles (1968, not reviewed) might be a better start, but O'Brien is always worth investigation by the converted, the curious, and the endemically lighthearted.

Meet the Author

Flann O'Brien, whose real name was Brian O'Nolan, also wrote under the pen name of Myles na Gopaleen. He was born in 1911 in County Tyrone. A resident of Dublin, he graduated from University College after a brilliant career as a student (editing a magazine called Blather) and joined the Civil Service, in which he eventually attained a senior position. He wrote throughout his life, which ended in Dublin on April 1, 1966. His other novels include The Dalkey Archive, The Third Policeman, The Hard Life, and The Poor Mouth, all available from Dalkey Archive Press. Also available are three volumes of his newspaper columns: The Best of Myles, Further Cuttings from Cruiskeen Lawn, and At War.